


Down to One

by 51PegasiB



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Gore, Halloween, Life Model Decoys, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:51:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51PegasiB/pseuds/51PegasiB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers are in the middle of the woods, out of communication with S.H.I.E.L.D. or any other help, when they come across the body of Phil Coulson. Who is responsible? Who can be trusted? And who will be left standing by the time they've figured it out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ((I've taken liberties with how Life Model Decoys operate for the sake of plot.))

It was a dark and stormy night.

A night like this, Tony would be completely sunk without Jarvis (well, and without Jarvis’ array of sensors and filters and programs to make meaning out of the chaos.) 

The wind whipped through the trees, picking up wet leaves and blowing them everywhere. Steve was still heartily urging them forward, but almost everyone else looked miserable, dripping wet, shivering cold and just wanting to be through as they tromped through the trees. 

Even Clint, stubbornly in his sleeveless suit, in spite of the chill, was better off than Bruce who was holding up what was left of his slacks with one hand and futilely trying to wipe rain off of his glasses with one finger. 

Only Thor was reveling in the wind and the pounding rain. 

"Is not this a fine night, my companions! We have battled and been victorious, and now we march on towards home, and a hot meal!"

"Uh. Thor, buddy, I’m not sure this place we’re headed has electricity," said Clint. "Apart from whatever you’ve got on you."

Tony snorted. 

"Coulson will think of something," said Natasha, quietly. 

"Yeah. Assuming he got there ahead of us, he totally will," agreed Clint. 

"Remind me why we’re not going home, tonight?" said Bruce, sounding as miserable as he looked as he squelched, barefoot through a matted floor of soaking wet leaves that had covered the rocky path. 

"We’re hoping more of them will check in tomorrow to see what happened to their compound and lead us back to the main secret base," said Steve. 

"And S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t take care of that, because?" Bruce asked. 

"Who do you think is perched in trees all around the place we just burned to the ground, miserable in the cold and wet right now, waiting to call Coulson as soon as any intel comes in?" said Natasha. "And who will *not* be getting a hot meal, tonight. Or even remotely dry?"

"Ah…sorry," said Bruce.

She just gave him a look.

They approached the little cabin, but all was dark. 

"I guess Coulson didn’t make it here before us," said Steve. "Stark? Any way you can get some kind of lights going? You’ve got night vision, right?"

"Can do, Cap." 

They all filed right inside the front door and waited while Tony went to find the generator and fired it up. As he did, all the lights came on and he heard a scream. He rushed inside to find Natasha grim-faced and clutching the arm of Clint, who looked as though he might be sick, Bruce breathing heavily and Steve kneeling on the hearth rug, next to an ungainly lump. Thor looked up at him, solemn-faced as he came in. “The son of Coul did precede us, but he encountered foul play.” 

Tony rushed forward. Steve was checking his pulse, but the wound had definitely spurted something dark and sticky and Coulson wasn’t breathing. A knife lay beside him, dripping with red. Steve stood and shook his head. Tony knealt down by the body. He flipped his helmet up and looked at Phil, then at all of them. 

"Well, guys, I uh…there’s something strange about this," said Tony. He flipped the helmet back down to double-check, then he reached out to the gaping knife wound on Phil’s chest he stuck one finger of the gauntlet inside and touched a rib. There were gasps from the rest of the room as he did so.

"Uh well," he flipped the faceplate up, again, and stood. "I have good news and bad news."

"What could possibly be the good news?" Clint asked in disbelief. 

"That’s not Phil. That’s a life model decoy," said Tony. 

Everyone sagged in relief. “What’s the bad news, then?” asked Natasha. 

"We’re apparently going to keep watching that bastard die over and over," said Tony. "He’s getting as bad as Jean Grey."


	2. Chapter 2

No one spoke as the rain pattered against the roof of the place and the wind shook against its eves, a constant aural reminder of the cold outside. 

"That’s not funny," said Natasha, quietly, to Tony. She stared him down. Tony swallowed and felt sweat prickling at his palms. He was glad he was inside the suit. It’d be harder for her to kill him this way…he thought. 

"Look," said Steve. "I’m glad Agent Coulson isn’t the one laying here, but the fact is, whether they succeeded or not, someone tried to kill him. They probably think they’ve succeeded. We need to figure out who and see if we can do anything to protect the real Phil before it happens again, more permanently."

"You’re assuming that they were gunning for Phil specifically," said Bruce. "Isn’t it more likely that it was someone random?" 

"Trying to burgle a shack in the middle of nowhere with nothing much in it?" said Natasha, skeptically. 

"Well, the alternative is pretty hard to swallow. After all, hardly anyone knew he was supposed to be out here," said Clint. "Just a few higher level folks at S.H.I.E.L.D. Even the folks down keeping the watch didn’t know. They knew he was our contact man, but not where he would be."

"Can anyone reach S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Bruce asked, being the only one without a working communicator. 

"Already tried," said Clint. I can get our field people, but no one is reaching H.Q. We’re supposed to be on blackout, here, till at least tomorrow." 

"Could Phil have been followed?" asked Bruce.

"Without knowing about it? Not likely," said Natasha "And if he’d known, short of someone with exceptional powers, he could’ve taken him."

"Of course, there are a lot of those…" muttered Bruce. 

"A lot of what, Banner?" asked Thor.

"People with exceptional powers," supplied Steve.

Tony snorted impatiently. “And no one else knew he was coming up here at all? Like…he wouldn’t have told his girlfriend or whatever?” he asked.

Clint shook his head. 

"He’s not that indiscreet," agreed Natasha. "The N.S.A. only wishes they had someone like Phil."

"I dislike to mention it, my shield-brethren," said Thor, solemnly, "but there are at least six souls who knew precisely where he would be during and after the events of this day." He looked around at the assembled heroes, pointedly. 

"Thor. You’re not seriously suggesting it was one of us," said Steve.

"I dislike thinking it, but if we do not consider the possibility, we may blind ourselves to what is before our faces," said Thor. "It would not be the first time disagreement between companions lead down a path of violence. Not even amongst our own."

They all stood quiet at that. Tony looked from one face to another. Natasha’s were the only eyes that met his. They were cold an appraising, giving nothing away.

"Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves," Steve finally said. "Let’s say what we know. When’s the last time we heard him over the comms?" 

"I don’t know. It was before someone set the fire," said Clint. There were nods. 

"Yeah, he asked me to check in just before we pulled back," Tony supplied. "Jarvis? Can you get me an exact number?" 

"Precisely one hour and 28 minutes ago, sir." The others nodded.

"Yes. It was about then for me, too," Natasha said.

"It took us maybe fifteen minutes to walk here, and when we got here he was cold. Any notion of how long that would take on one of these LMDs, Stark?" Steve asked.

Tony considered the question. “I can’t be sure without knowing what runs it - what sort of power plant it has…how hot it normally runs…” He stopped. “Uh. The answer is no, not really. Not without taking him…it apart.”

"Well, let’s forget that, for the moment," said Steve with a frown. "Is there anything else that anyone noticed?"

"Assuming the LMD had Phil’s thoughts and memories, I think it was someone Phil knew who did this," said Natasha.

Steve looked at her, surprised. “Why?”

"A few reasons," she said, stepping delicately around the prone android with the bloodied hole in its chest. "One: there are no defensive wounds, even though he was stabbed through the chest and not the back." She tapped the knife next to the body with her toe. "Two: this looks like Phil’s knife. Doesn’t it, Clint?" 

Clint walked over and leaned down, examining it closely without touching it. “Yeah. That’s his, all right. Or a remarkable facsimile.”

"Any way we can test it for fingerprints?" Bruce asked.

"Maybe," said Tony. He flipped his helmet down. "Jarvis? Can we scan the knife?"

"I’m not picking anything up," said Jarvis. "Maybe if the light were better or it were closer, but from this distance and under these conditions, I’m afraid it’s impossible." 

Tony walked over and reached for the knife. Natasha put her foot down on it. “No one touches anything,” she said.

"What? I just need a closer look." 

"Forget it, Stark," she said, with a warning look. "Everyone is under suspicion till we figure out what happened."

Tony flipped up the faceplate, again, specifically to give her an incredulous look. “Isn’t that your life motto?” he asked with a sardonic grin.

"She’s right, Tony. No one is above suspicion," said Steve.

"Well, I didn’t fucking kill fake Phil," said Tony, gesturing wildly with one gauntleted hand at the prone android.

"I have trouble believing any of us could do it, but as Thor said, stranger things have happened. So for now, we’re just going to have to cooperate and be as calm as possible," said Steve, looking levelly at each of them in turn.

When his eyes met Tony’s, Tony averted his. “All right, but we’re going to get nowhere if we can’t actually, like, look for clues.”

"Uh…" said Bruce. "If we got him working again, might he not know who killed him?" 

"Can you do that?" Steve looked at Tony again.

"Maybe, but not without touching him," Tony said. 

"We appear to be at an impasse until we can garner more information," said Thor. "I shall retrieve firewood, so that we may have the comfort of warmth."

"Hold it!" said Steve, as Thor turned to the door. "No one goes anywhere alone."


	3. Chapter 3

Thor looked at Steve in surprise. “I cannot be killed by mere Midgardian weapons,” he said. 

Steve looked at him. “No, maybe not, but as Bruce pointed out, standard Earthly weapons might not be what we’re dealing with, here. Also…” he trailed off.

"Also you might be the killer," Natasha finished for him. "If we’re under suspicion, we’re all under suspicion." 

Thor looked at her, she stared him down. He nodded. “Very well, Lady Natasha, would you care to accompany me?” 

"You and Clint both go," said Steve. Natasha nodded. 

Clint slid his quiver back on and slung his bow over his shoulder. “Fine, but if there’s not going to be hot food when I get back, someone is going to pay.” 

They trooped back out into the stormy evening. 

Tony looked at Bruce and Steve. “Well, what are we gonna do?” he asked. 

"We’re going to see if there’s food and get it together to heat up, so Clint doesn’t try to kill any of us with arrows," said Steve.

"Shouldn’t we…I don’t know. Shouldn’t we move him? Put him on a bed or something?" said Bruce, staring down on the remarkable facsimile of Coulson that still lay splayed on the hearth.

"Isn’t this a crime scene?" said Tony. "We can’t move him."

"Is it a crime to stab an android through the heart?" asked Bruce. 

Steve sighed. “We’re actually going to need the fireplace…I hope. Bruce, you look for food in the cupboards. Tony, help me pull the whole rug away from the fireplace. Hopefully that will preserve whatever evidence there is to preserve.”

"Honestly, we all walked right around him, and it’s not like on the TV shows, anyway. It’s not like there’s going to be a whole bunch of obvious clues, here. Whoever did this knows what they were doing," said Tony, nevertheless grabbing a corner of the rug and helping Steve drag it backwards. 

Bruce found a box with the SHIELD logo full of MREs, flashlights, matches, army blankets, a deck of cards and a few other things. It also had a set of SHIELD-issue sweats in his size and some moccasin-style slippers. “Whoever was pulling his strings, he sure thought like Coulson,” he said, letting the box fall to the floor by the fireplace with a thump and quickly pulling on the sweats and discarding the tattered remains of his pants.

They sat and stared at the box in silence. 

"He didn’t, by chance, supply any cigars or scotch, did he?" 

Bruce put his hand in the box, and turned up a flask, which he tossed to Tony. “I’m surprised you didn’t have a compartment put in the suit for that,” he said, with a frown.

"I have been assured that the FAA would shut me down if I did," he said. "I keep meaning to check that for myself. It might have just been Pepper mothering me."

Steve rolled his eyes. 

Silence fell for a long beat.

"Hey, uh," said Bruce. "How far would they really have had to go to find a tree for firewood? Aren’t we literally surrounded by them?" 

Tony felt his skin prickle and his heart sink. “Do you think something happened?” 

Steve stood up, “I’ll go look for them.” 

"You said no one goes anywhere alone," Tony pointed out. 

"I’m just going to look out the door for them," Steve said. "Right outside." 

"It was your rule!" said Tony. "What kind of leader breaks his own rule?"

Steve sighed exasperatedly. “We can’t just leave them out there. What if they’re lost?”

The door slammed open. Clint had his bow drawn pointing it out into the darkness. “Come hold the door” he called. 

Steve leapt up and held it. “Clint, what’s going on?”

"That bastard…he…only let her out of my sight for a second…but I couldn’t get her back here on my own. Anyway, he claims he didn’t…" Clint stepped lightly as he backed into the room. Thor followed at a stately pace behind him, bearing a limp body, the bright red hair of which flowed down over one of his massive arms and dripped onto the floor. 

"Is she?" Bruce said. 

"I’m afraid she was. I heard a scream in the darkness, and I came upon her already bloodied and still. I swear I did her no harm."

Bruce was checking her pulse and looking at the wound, her own knife still protruding from it. Tony and Steve turned to look at Clint. 

"You can’t possibly fucking think I did it! She was….you don’t even know what she was to me!" 

"It’s true, I can’t imagine you doing it. I can’t imagine any of us doing it. It must be someone hunting us down - stalking us around this place," said Steve. 

"Making me feel only marginally better," said Bruce. "Hey, Tony, come look at this," he said. He wrapped the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his hand, pulling out the knife. 

Tony walked over. He examined the wound, then slid the faceplate down and gave it the once over. He flipped the faceplate up and looked at Bruce in fear and consternation.

Bruce met his eyes and frowned, eyebrows knit together. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too,” he said. 

"What?" said Steve, "What is it?" 

Thor was laying Natasha carefully next to the Coulson android as Tony said, “That’s not Natasha.”

"What the fuck are you talking about?" said Clint, with a shrill edge to his voice. He hadn’t let his hand drop from the bowstring. He was backed into a corner, looking wildly between the other men in the room.

"I have no idea what this means, but she was another life model decoy," said Tony. 

"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?" said Clint. "WHAT THE FUCK?"

Steve frowned. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone go through all the trouble of replacing her just to kill her.”

"Clint, was she acting any differently than normal?" asked Bruce.

Clint sputtered. “No! I mean…she seemed like herself to me. She was quiet, but she’s always quiet.” 

"When did she get replaced?" asked Tony. "Where is the real Natasha?" 

"Oh god," said Clint. He went pale. "Fuck. They would’ve needed the real Natasha to make the memories seem seamless. She’s probably back at the compound we just fucking burned down. I have to go find her." 

"Clint, you can’t. We’re operating under the assumption that someone is out there picking us off one by one," said Steve. "We don’t want anybody to be next." 

"Least of all the guy with no invulnerability or fancy armor," Bruce added, quietly. 

Clint looked defiantly at the half-circle of superheroes blocking his way, then crumpled. “Fuck,” he said.

"The true Lady Natasha may not be there, in any case," said Thor. "Whoever plays this game may have been playing it a considerable while." 

"You really think someone could’ve replaced her days or weeks ago and none of us would’ve noticed…*I* wouldn’t have noticed?" said Clint.

"That is the whole point of a life model decoy," pointed out Tony. "The question is, why would someone plant two LMD’s on the team only to take them out bloodily while we’re in the middle of nowhere?" 

"Might not be the same person who planted them," pointed out Steve. 

"There might not be two," said Bruce. 

All heads swiveled towards him. 

He shrugged, “Tony’s right the point of an LMD is you can’t tell it apart from a real person. All output is the same, all radiation, even brainwaves. The LMD doesn’t even have to know it’s an LMD. So…you could all be LMDs.”

"So could you," said Tony. 

"I hulked out before. I seriously doubt an LMD could do that," he pointed out. 

"Yeah, but that was hours ago," said Clint, quietly. "Anyone see Bruce de-Hulk?"

There were general shakes of the head all around. “I didn’t see him till we met up to hike out here,” volunteered Steve. 

"Is there no way we could distinguish these things from the true warriors that comprise our team?" asked Thor.

"Two ways that I know of," said Tony. "Cut into the skin till you get past the outer disguising layer…surgery, basically, for which we’re not equipped if any of us *isn’t* one." 

"And the other?" Bruce asked.

"EMP," said Tony. "Which I absolutely do not consent to." 

"EMP?" Thor asked. "I am unfamiliar with the significance of these letters."

"EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse," said Bruce. "Basically it’s a kind of weapon that knocks out anything run by a computer. Tony’s suit would become a really large and expensive paperweight." 

"And I’d become the snail without a shell," Tony said, "totally helpless. Not gonna happen. I’m the only one who can set it up, and I won’t." 

"Does it actually matter if we are LMDs?" asked Steve. "We think we’re ourselves, right? I mean…we’d make the same decisions we’d always make, so the much more pressing question than whether we’re synthetic or not is who keeps putting knives into people and why."

"The captain speaks truth," said Thor. 

"I…guess," said Tony, slowly. He wasn’t so sure. There were weird things going on, and when they happened all at once, like this, it was hard to believe they weren’t related, somehow.

"So…let’s eat," said Steve. "The best thing we can do for right now is stick together and do the best we can to take care of ourselves."

He started tossing MREs to everyone. Clint let his hit him in the chest and slide to the floor. “Not sure I’m really hungry,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

"That’s the sort of thing an LMD would say," said Tony, eying him.

"Are you serious? Fuck you, Stark," said Clint. He slid to the floor next to the nondescript packet and dropped his head, heavily, in his hands. He breathed for a moment and picked it up the MRE and looked at it. "Aww…I got Pork Sausage with gravy. Anyone get the spicy chicken stew?" 

"There’s one in here," said Bruce. "Toss it back?"

They swapped the MREs around till everyone was satisfied with what they had. Bruce took around bottles of water. Clint opened his and laid out all the little packets and stared at them for a while before actually eating. Steve followed the instructions to the letter, even using the included flameless heater to heat his up. No one else bothered. 

Tony looked around, half-appalled and half grateful for the sudden sense of normalcy food brought to the scene. 

"So…how cold is it supposed to get?" asked Bruce. He was wrapping one of the army blankets around his shoulders. Clint crawled forward to grab one, too.

"I’m not sure. We are pretty high up and it wasn’t actually warm to start with," said Steve. "Probably cold." 

"Gee. Thanks. Informative," said Tony. 

"Do you have anything constructive to add with all the fancy gear in your suit?"

Tony flipped the faceplate down. “It’s about 50 right now, in here” he said, then flipped it back up. 

"Fifty of what?" Thor asked. "Your arbitrary numbers mean little to me."

"Fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Probably much chillier outside," said Bruce. 

"Are we going to be able to get through the night without firewood?"

"I’m not going back out there," said Clint, matter-of-factly.

"Yeah. It seems unfuckingwise," said Tony. "If we are being stalked, why make ourselves targets?"

"Says the guy in the climate-controlled suit," said Bruce.

"We can always strip down and get under the blankets together," Said Steve. 

Tony’s eyebrow flew up. “Interesting way to pass the time, coming from Mister upright forties guy.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s a survival technique. Think it’s unmanly? Tell it to the Howling Commandos.”

"There’s nothing unmanly about the gay, Steve. It’s pretty much all about man," Tony rebutted, to snickers from Barton’s direction.

Bruce sighed and pulled the blanket closer.

"I shall retrieve firewood. I fear not cowards who strike from the shadows. None such shall slay the son of Odin." Thor stood, as though to go. 

All eyes turned in his direction.

"Thor you can’t just go out there," said Steve. "It’s not safe." 

"This creeping person cannot slay me," he said, with a careless twirl of Mjolnir. 

"But what if you’re not you?" said Clint. He was curled into a blanket, now, one edge pulled up onto his head like a hood, the rest clutched around him and tucked under his crossed legs. 

"Then what have I to lose? If this form is not my true one, tis no loss to see it destroyed," said Thor. 

"But what about the rest of us? What if some of us are human and that thing…or person is still at work?" said Bruce. 

"I have great faith in your ability to defeat a lone opponent, Banner, given what I have seen you do to armies," Thor responded. He shouldered his great hammer and strolled out the door. 

"I can’t let him go alone," said Steve. "You three stay here."

"Uh. Yeah. Not a problem, Cap," said Clint, letting his blanket fall further over his eyes. 

Steve shouldered his shield and jogged out into the blustery night after Thor. 

He had only just gone when there were two loud clangs in quick succession, followed by nothing but the sound of the rain pattering on the roof. Clint let his blanket fall back from his head. Bruce tensed visibly. Tony looked at them both and was up and making for the door, the others fast on his heels. 

They opened it and looked out. Only a few paces from the cabin, there was Steve, half his head bashed in, Mjolnir still resting atop it. Further away was Thor, neck partially severed by Steve’s shield, laying prone so that the shield rose above his broad chest like a tombstone. 

"That’s just wrong," said Clint. 

"I am now really hoping everyone’s a life model decoy," said Bruce. "Amongst other things, if we are, it’s possible the real me won’t remember any of this." 

"Guys, this is bad," said Tony, his brain racing through estimations and leaping to conclusions.

"YOU THINK?" said Clint.

"No, I mean…you heard the hits. They happened really close together."

"Yeah. So?" Clint asked.

"He’s saying this couldn’t be an outside job. They must really have done it to each other," said Bruce. "Only they wouldn’t. So that must mean they really were LMDs."

"Well, there’s more evidence to be had," Tony strode out the door and went to stand over the prone form of hopefully-not-Steve. He reached down and grasped the handle of the mighty hammer. He looked up at the other two men and…lifted it with relative ease, thanks to the power of the suit. 

"Anyone believe I’m worthy of wielding the real Mjolnir?" he asked with a half-smirk. 

Bruce shook his head and frowned. 

"Hell, no," Clint said, almost cheerfully.

Tony probed the wreckage of the skull and confirmed that this was a flesh-covered android, not their leader. He moved to Thor and took the shield out of his neck. “Shit,” he said. “Fuck.” 

"What is it?" Bruce called. 

Tony waved him off and squatted by Thor’s form to probe the gash in his neck and confirm that he, too, wasn’t the real thing. Then he strode back over to the other two men. He handed the hammer to Bruce who grunted (it was still a big, heavy piece of metal, after all) and put it down. Then he handed over the shield. Bruce’s eyes went wide as he accepted it. 

"Shit," said Bruce. 

"Will you two stop saying that and explain?" said Clint. 

Bruce handed the shield to Clint, who took it, and looked at it. 

"Yeah…what am I missing?"

"Feel how light it is?" asked Bruce. 

"That isn’t the real Mjolnir," said Tony, pointing at the hammer where Bruce had dropped it, "But that shield is real vibranium. That’s Steve’s real shield. That a life model decoy had. How? He sleeps with it. How did they get it?" 

"Shit," said Clint. "Well, Thor’s hammer had to be a fake. It’s like…I don’t know…it’s like a dog. It can tell the difference even if nothing else can."

"But the rest of this stuff is real," said Tony. "My suit is obviously real. Your bow is real. All your trick arrows…" 

"How would they have gotten any of this stuff?" said Clint. Then he shook his head. "Anyway, of course my bow and arrows are real. I’m me." 

"I don’t think any of us are," said Bruce, shaking his head.

"Well, we can’t prove it without cutting ourselves open," said Tony.

"Or you could do the EMP," said Bruce, quietly. 

"No way. Then I’d be defenseless out here." 

"YOU’D be defenseless, Stark. What about ME?" Clint said, getting a little shrill. "I’m just out here in the open! For all I know, you might just be a head!" 

"You could at least come out of the suit, Tony," pointe out Bruce. 

"You could Hulk out," said Tony. "You said yourself that an LMD couldn’t imitate that."

Bruce shrugged. “I don’t think one could,” he said. “But I’m not going to put us all in danger to prove I’m myself.”

"We’re already in danger!" said Clint. "We’re in danger from anyone who isn’t human. You saw them out there! They killed each other! Something flipped in their brains and they just killed each other."

"The timing isn’t random, either," said Bruce. 

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "It keeps happening when people are alone. I mean…that one happened right after they walked out the door." 

"Which means someone is watching us," finished Bruce. 

"Like, surveillance?" Clint looked around, wildly. 

"Actually, if there are androids, it might be that they’re phoning home, wirelessly," said Bruce. "Or that there are pre-programmed subroutines that govern that behavior, just waiting till someone is alone to have the self-destruct kick in." 

Clint let out a squeaking noise and reached for his blanket, again. “I can’t deal with this. I can’t. Fuck this.” he wrapped it around himself, this time covering over his whole head. 

"We should try to get some sleep," said Tony. 

"No fucking way," said the pile of blanket with the Clint core.

"Why? I think our mission is kind of a wash. There’s no way we can take out another compound without half the team. And that’s assuming the rest of us make it to sunrise," said Bruce, mildly. 

"Well you’re just a fucking ray of sunshine," said Tony, letting his head fall back into the wall he was leaning on with a thunk. 

"I’m a pragmatist," said Bruce. "And we’re all dead, assuming we’re us at all."

Tony let the faceplate fall shut, at that. He couldn’t deal with any more of this, at the moment. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to think about the possibility that he wasn’t himself.


	5. Chapter 5

He tried. He failed.

"Hey, Jarvis, is there any sign I’m not myself?" 

"You do seem unusually serious at the moment, sir," said Jarvis. 

"Not what I meant, J. I mean…any of the readings off-kilter?" 

"No readings appear to be outside of normal parameters. Your heart rate is a little high, Sir, but I suggest that may be due to the anxiety brought about by this situation. It would probably be of greater concern if you were unaffected."

Tony sighed. “Good point, J. What about the other two?” 

They were showing up on infrared as hot spots - Bruce more so than Clint, unsurprisingly. He flipped the faceplate back up and was looking at Bruce sitting cross-legged and a lump of blankets where Clint should be.

"Hey, Clint. You still in there?" asked Tony.

Clint didn’t respond.

"He said he wanted to be alone, but he didn’t want to go anywhere," said Bruce. "Leave him be." 

"Okay. For a little bit," Tony said. "You’re on the clock, raptor-brain."

Bruce sighed. 

"What?" said Tony.

"I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. Why would anyone be doing this? I mean - replace us with Life Model Decoys, sure. There are plenty of schemes where a team of well-known superheroes at your command makes sense."

"Yeah. And kill us. Who hasn’t tried?" said Tony with a snort.

"Right," agreed Bruce. "But why do one then the other? I mean…it now looks as though the LMDs are us, mostly, but then they get a command or something and…" He swallowed and trailed off. 

Tony nodded. “And…” he drew two fingers across the neck-plate of the suit, “goodbye fake-venger.”

"Right. But if we’re all LMDs, that makes no sense to do. Why would you do it?"

"If they’ve got us somewhere controlling the LMDs, it would feel like we actually died. They might make something out of that," said Tony. 

"Seems like a pretty inefficient way to make us feel like we’re dying when, for some of us, at least, they could, actually, y’know…kill us," said Bruce

"Good point," said Tony. "So what are you saying?"

"I’m saying I think one of us is real - not an LMD. And if we can figure out which, we might be able to figure out what they want and we’ll have a chance of keeping it away from them," said Bruce. 

"Except we can’t." 

Bruce looked at him. “Well, we could…” he looked significantly at the suit. 

"No. No way. Anything strong enough to fry one of those things would fry this too." 

"We could also take turns slicing cuts deep enough into each other that the armature would show," Bruce offered.

Tony cringed. “Not a fan of that, either.” 

Bruce sighed. “Yeah. Nor me.” 

They lapsed into silence, again. 

"Hey, birdbrain. Had enough alone time, yet?" Tony said. 

There was no response from the blanket burrito that was Clint.

"Barton! Still with us?" Tony said, louder. 

Bruce reached out to touch him. “Hey, Clint. We want your opinion on something.” He frowned as Clint didn’t respond. 

Bruce rolled Clint. The new position revealed sticky red spreading out over the grey blankets. 

"Shit!" said Tony. He helped Bruce disentangle the blankets from around Clint only to reveal a bloody mess where he’d opened up his own chest with a pocket knife several times before finding a spot between his ribs and apparently, pushing an arrow through it. The ragged edges of the flesh-and-blood layer revealed peeks at the technology within. 

Bruce was looking at it with a deep frown. Tony felt like throwing up. 

"He was completely silent. He did this to himself completely silently. He didn’t make a sound," said Bruce. 

"People kept dying by their own weapons. Coulson, Tasha, Clint…." Tony was breathing heavily. 

"Their flips got switched and bam. They did it to themselves. No one knew where Coulson was. He did it himself," said Bruce, in the same quiet voice. Tony worried about Bruce’s state of mind. 

Bruce looked up at him. “It’s you or it’s me. One of us is who we are. The other one isn’t.” 

"What can we do? We need more data!" said Tony. "How can I play this game? We don’t have all the pieces." 

"Tony. We assume they want whatever they always want when it’s one of us. So it’s either your suit and your considerable engineering brilliance…."

"Or they want Hulk as a lab rat," Tony concluded, looking at Bruce with concern. 

"Right," said Bruce. He swallowed. "Okay. I hate to admit this, but now I’m kind of hoping that you’re the real boy."

"Gee, thanks," said Tony, with a smirk. "It’s not like you’re the only one whose ever been held hostage and tortured." 

"Sorry. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but…damn. I am afraid," said Bruce.

"Don’t get afraid," said Tony. "Get angry."

"What? How will that help? The Hulk will just smash the cabin." 

"Look, if it’s me who’s real, you probably won’t be able to change," reasoned Tony. "And I’ll be fine. And if it’s you who’s real, I’m probably dead anyway. Look at what happened to Clint." 

"And if it’s both of us?" Bruce asked. 

"You’re the one who said it was only one," said Tony. 

"But I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before," said Bruce.

"Fuck, Bruce, just do it," said Tony. "Do it."

Bruce turned away from him, curling into himself, when he turned back, he was panting and his eyes were green.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce looked at him, eyes shining green, expression full of breathless anger. He growled and….took a breath. “Okay, yeah. I can’t hulk out.” 

"So it’s me," said Tony. He stared at Bruce. He would’ve sworn that the man was his friend and teammate. He would still swear it. "Are you sure? This isn’t some kind of mental block thing?"

"It’s…definitely not. You have to get away from here. You have to get away from me. Go hide. Go find the S.H.I.E.L.D. folks. Tell them what’s going on. Get a team together and go find the real me and the rest of us," Bruce urged. 

"Then we might never figure out who did this or why," said Tony.

"But you’ll be safe. Go," Bruce urged. 

"I’m fine. You can’t even Hulk out," Tony said, dismissively. 

"I could be a walking bomb, Tony. I could be reporting your every word you say and every move you make to…"

"To whom?" said Tony. "You don’t even know." 

"To whomever. Whoever they are they have an absurd amount of resources and a pretty twisted mindset," said Bruce, looking down at Clint’s double, laying at their feet.

"Fuck this. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I have no idea what they’re trying to achieve. I can’t handle this, Bruce? How am I supposed to treat you as hostile. You’re not! You’re trying to help me!" said Tony. 

"Yeah, but I may stop at any moment. I may attack you. We don’t know. You should probably kill me." 

"I’m not fucking…killing you. That’s just fucked up," said Tony. He wanted to slump back to the ground, but this seemed like a time for action - he just didn’t know what. 

"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Bruce. "You can’t just stay here." 

"Where am I supposed to go? No pick up till tomorrow. No communication with S.H.I.E.L.D., and if I go out trying to find the field operatives that are out there, I might not be able to find them, plus I may place them in danger. I have to stay here and figure out what’s going on. Not spread the pain, right now."

"Are you going to single-handedly save the day? I thought you were done going it alone," said Bruce, quietly.

"See, that is such a Bruce thing to say. It was judgmental but also reproachful," Tony said, almost pleading with his friend. 

"Tony, face it. You are already here alone. Whatever I am - it’s not here to help you," said Bruce. He looked sad - truly regretful - as thought he’d offended Tony and needed to apologize. Then he laughed a soft, dark laugh. "It figures that I’d achieve the goal I’ve been chasing for so long only as a tool in a sinister plot." 

Bruce wiped his hand over his face.

"What are you talking about?"

"I’m free of the Hulk. Except I’m not me. And the proof is that the Hulk isn’t here," he laughed again, harder this time. The laugh didn’t stop, it became something harsh and ragged and awful as Bruce gave up fighting to get his breath and just laughed twisted in on himself and clutching his stomach. 

"Bruce. Hey, buddy, calm down. Hey. Hey. Stick with me. I cant…you’re freaking me out," said Tony. He leaned over next to Bruce and put a hand on his back. 

It took Tony a minute to realize that the noises coming from Bruce and the jerking motions of his back had shifted into something else. 

"Tony," he gasped quietly. "Run. Run." Bruce looked up at him with wild eyes. "GO!" He was shaking uncontrollably, now. Jerking in ways and directions that a normal human body would not…could not move. Tony stepped back and watched in horror as Bruce dug the fingers of his right hand into his left shoulder till blood was pouring down his side. Wide-eyed and speechless, Tony watched as Bruce began to…peel, revealing the armature of another LMD. 

Shreds of the synthetic flesh, dripping with synthetic blood, clung to the ribs, Bruce was silent, staring at him as he tore the skin off of his own bones. 

Where his heart should have been, there was a device with a pulsing glow. Bruce’s hands snapped his ribs open at the sternum and reached for it.

"Sir," said a voice in his ear, "My sensors suggest that’s an explosive device. You have to stop him from activating it." 

Tony let the faceplate slam shut. “Weak point?” he snapped at Jarvis as Bruce pulled out the device. 

"I’d suggest the neck, sir," Jarvis responded. 

Tony aimed the repulsor at the neck and shot, staring straight into Bruce’s eyes, till they rolled away, with the rest of is head on the floor. What was left of the Bruce LMD toppled forward onto the bomb. A loud beeping came from beneath him. 

"Shit," said Tony. He took off straight up through the roof of the cabin and shot up into the night sky just barely in advance of the inevitable detonation. A section of the roof collapsed, but nothing else seemed to happen. "What happened, Jarvis? Are you getting readings? Was it a dud?"

"Sir it seems I was incorrect about the nature of the devi…" Jarvis halted mid-sentence, his display went dark and Tony was falling back out of the sky. 

"Son of a bitch," said Tony, before hitting the roof, then the floor, then the dirt floor of the cellar, which finally and violently halted the fall. He cracked his skull as he came down - none of the inertial compensation working without the suits electronics - and saw stars before blacking out.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony awoke to a blacked-out display. The suit was dead. he could move, but it took a lot of effort. He raised his head and looked through the narrow viewslits that were his only visibility when the display was off.

He heard something, muffled by the helmet. Steve ran into his field of vision, shouting something. He pulled the manual release on the suit, and tony was disgorged into the air and the rain that was coming down through the hole he’d made as he crashed through the cabin, his metal shell laid around him like a discarded skin. Tony shrank back. He was feeling a little hysterical. He couldn’t divest himself of the thought of Steve with mjolnir crushing half his head.

"Are you real?" Tony asked, in spite of how he knew it would sound.

Steve nodded. “We kept waking up in a holding facility as our doubles were ‘killed’. You should’ve heard Clint turn the air blue when he woke up.” 

"And you remember what happened…here?" Tony asked, venturing to sit up, still keeping a decent distance between himself and Steve.

"Yeah. It was…" Steve frowned. "It must have been pretty traumatic to be the last many standing," he said. He looked at Tony with concern and stepped towards him. Tony scooted back, scattering pieces of his dead suit. 

"That’s far enough," he said to Steve.

"But you’re hurt. I need to check on you."

"Nope. How do I know that you’re you?" 

Steve stepped forward. “I am. I mean…I am. How can I prove it?” 

There was a crunch from another room and Tony hear the Hulk roar. 

"HulK? Hulk!" said Tony. 

"Yeah, Bruce hulked out when he came to. That’s what finally helped us break out and come to find you," said Steve. 

Tony struggled to his feet. He felt dizzy. He nearly threw up the MRE he ate earlier as the pain in his head intensified and his vision swam. 

"Whoa. Take it easy, Tony. I think you took a pretty bad knock," said Steve. "Please let me take a look at it."

"Stay away from me. Just…I know you think you’re Steve. Stay back. If you want me to trust you…just…" Tony held up a hand, clutching his head with the other, and edged along the wall, making for the sound of the big green guy. 

Steve followed at a respectful distance, worry painted on his face. He looked like Steve. He was acting like Steve. 

But so had the last Steve. 

Tony staggered up the cellar stairs and into the main cabin. It was definitely worse for wear. There was a hole clear through the center of it and a ragged hole in one wall. The rest of the team was there. 

"Captain! You found him!" boomed Thor. He hurt Tony’s head. 

Even Natasha looked mildly pleased, but Tony made for the large green body in the crumbling gap where part of the wall used to be. “Hulk. You’re you. He’s really him,” said Tony, pointing. 

"We all are, Tony. We are. And I can prove it," said Steve. The rest of the team’s smiling eyes swiveled towards him. Steve was holding up a blue flashing device like the one that had come out of Bruce. 

All eyes were on him. The rest of the team seemed sanguine. Tony frowned. “Where did you get that?” 

"We picked it up on our way out of the compound. It’s an EMP," said Steve.

"I know." Tony’s mouth was dry. "Go on, then. Suit is already dead." 

Steve, still smiling, hit the button on the EMP. 

There was no explosion, just a light flare. Tony thought, for a moment, that nothing had changed. He regained his vision slowly, after the flare, blinking in the rainy half-light. 

He looked at Steve, grinning. Then, behind him, there was a loud crash. He turned around, and the Hulk had just fallen over. He wasn’t breathing. Tony looked around more closely. They were all frozen in place, still smiling. Eyes still open, but unblinking and unbreathing. 

Tony started to shudder. “What the fuck? What the FUCK?” he asked the night air. 

There was no answer at first. Then there was a light shining into the cabin through the rain. The light moved and got closer. It took a little bit for Tony to parse that the light was headlights. There was a vehicle approaching the cabin. Tony ran to what remained of one corner and crouched in it. Men with very large guns, SWAT armor and night vision goggles poured into the cabin and aimed squarely at him. He didn’t have a chance. 

He stood, hands over his head. From behind the men, a familiar, extremely irritating voice called to him. 

"Jesus, Anthony. It’s amazing what it’ll take to get you out of your armor. And you used to strip down for any pretty face." 

Tony put his hands down and sneered. “Hammer?” he said.

"Oh I wouldn’t use such a contemptuous tone," said Justin Hammer, striding forward, bathed in the light of his own smartphone, which he was perusing before he looked up at Tony. "These guys are under orders not to kill you if they can help it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t maim you a little." The man flashed a smarmy grin. 

"What the fuck do you want, Hammer." 

"Well, I finally figured out that it’d be a lot easier to get your technology straight from the source," he said. "Go down and pack up the suit, boys."

Three of the men moved. One stayed put and kept a gun trained on Tony. 

"So, resorting to theft and kidnapping to make up for your intellectual deficiencies, Hammer?" 

"Mock me all you like, Anthony. I’m a driven man. I always get what I want," said Justin Hammer in a cocky tone. 

"Oh, I wasn’t mocking you. I was just surprised that you finally came up with a strategy that might actually work," said Tony, trying to make his grin as cocky as Hammer sounded. "Like viagra for your stock. With me and my tech, you might finally be able to keep it up." 

Hammer’s smile dropped. 

"The question is, why did you go through all that hullabaloo just to kidnap little old me?" Tony said, avoiding the much more real and present question of where his teammates were. "And now that you’ve got me, how long do you think you’re going to hold onto me when my teammates figure out I’m missing?"

Hammer smiled, again, broader than before. 

"Man, now that we have your suit, they won’t figure it out. I’m gonna repair that suit, and send you back. It won’t be the real you, of course, but they won’t figure that out. You couldn’t tell the difference, and neither will they." 

Tony’s blood froze. “They will figure it out.” 

Hammer smiled. “Nope. Don’t think so. And if you don’t make any fuss. I won’t program it to kill them or, in the case of your invulnerable friends, hound them into leaving. That big green guy might have to go back into hiding. Thor has his own planet to worry about…why…there are all kinds of options.” 

The man’s grin was practically shit-eating. Tony felt like he was going to throw up again. The armed thugs were bringing up his suit in pieces. There was only one guy left with a gun on him. Tony went for him sweeping to the side and knocking him down before the others dropped the mark 50 and got their guns up. He got Hammer between him and the guns. 

"Go ahead, boys, shoot," he said. He looked over his shoulder at Tony. "You don’t actually think I’d send the real me into danger when I have the technology to avoid it, do you?" 

Tony found himself cowering behind a dead weight android body under a hale of bullets. He returned fire. 

* * * 

The next day, tired Avengers finally made it to the cabin in their search. Tony was laying outside next to his dead armor. His head still sharply ached, but there wasn’t a scratch on him. 

He didn’t quite remember how he’d escaped getting hit by all the bullets. His memory was hazy. Hadn’t someone been taunting him? He hated being taunted. He looked up as his team hove into view. 

"Thank god. Are you really…" 

"We’re really us," said Steve. He seemed tired. 

Hulk burst out of the trees behind Steve, got a look at Tony and shrank back into Bruce. “Oh, thank god,” the scientist croaked. 

Tony watched that happen. “I believe you,” he said. “Can we get out of here? I think I might have a concussion.” 

"Come on, We’ll get you checked out," said Steve. Thor came over and picked Tony up, carefully. The others were gathering up his suit. 

"Do you guys remember what happened? How did you get here? Who was keeping you?"

Clint was walking beside them, now. “It was kind of like when you’re dreaming, and you dreamed you woke up, but then it turned out you didn’t, but then you really do,” said Clint. “The second time we woke up in a cell, no one was there. No one kept us from getting out,” he said. 

Tony’s forehead wrinkled. 

"That’s weird."

"Yeah. We thought it was," Clint said. "Anyhow, holding cell number two was way farther away, so it took us longer to get back here. We still have no idea who’s holding us."

Tony was frowning. 

"Something’s wrong. Something is not right. That’s not how this goes."

"What do you mean, Stark?" said Clint. "I swear, we’re really us this time."

"We need to prove it. I’m not going anywhere. Get another EMP."

It took some time. Tony accepted S.H.I.E.L.D. first aid while they were waiting for it. Then someone brought one. Tony looked around at them, with a solemn face. “Sorry about this guys, it’s just been too strange of a day. I just need to be sure that nothing is wrong,” he said. 

"We get it," said Bruce. "Go ahead." 

Tony hit the button. The light flashed and Tony toppled over onto the ground, limbs all gone slack. Everyone else was left staring at each other in horror.

"I guess he was right," said Clint, softly. "Things weren’t normal. What do we do, now?" 

"We look for him," said Steve, with a sigh. "We keep looking."

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted in serial format on my tumblr as a lark for Halloween. It's just supposed to be a bit of fun and doesn't hook up with anything else I've written.


End file.
